“Cheat.”
At the word, Ni Shin’s ears stood
up as she stood at her dealer’s position at one of the blackjack
tables. The word came from her left, so she spared a quick glance
through her peripheral vision to see what was going on. All the
while, she kept most of her attention on the two furs playing.
One had looked as if he was working some kind of system.
Sucker.
A thrown glass heralded the start
of the fight, followed by the sounds of a scuffle and a clatter as
chairs were knocked aside. The seventeen-year-old red panda
smiled at the two players at her table and said briskly, “Cards down,
please.” As the two furs complied she pulled a leather tube full
of lead birdshot from its hiding place under the table. “Just be
a minute, boys – so no peeking,” she said cheerily.
The fight was getting closer and
the bouncers were having a hard time getting to it, probably because of
the crowd of people who had gathered to place bets on which combatant
might win. Shin waited until she could feel them getting closer
to her tailfur, then turned quickly.
A broad canine back was facing
her, and she cracked the sap across the back of his head. He
pitched forward, leaving the other erstwhile card player standing there
and looking angry.
“Why, you little – “ was all the
fur managed to snarl before the Chinese girl kicked him straight in the
crotch. Most of the men (and a few of the hostesses) flinched at
the blow as the man grabbed himself and went down howling. Two of
the bouncers, a bear and a Manchurian tiger, finally managed to wade
through the crowd and grabbed both of the fighters. The
spectators scrambled underfoot to gather up the money the two had left
behind.
“About time you showed up, Fang,”
Shin teased, turning back to her table just in time to see one of the
players reaching for her cards. She tapped his knuckles with the
sap and he pulled the paw back as if burned.
She felt a broad, strong paw swat
at her rear as Wo Fang growled in her ear, “Not my fault you draw a
crowd, Shin.”
The red panda ground her rear
back into his paw, and one of the blackjack players started to whistle
but cringed at the tiger’s glare. He jerked the unconscious
canine up by his shirt collar and started dragging him out into the
muddy street in front of the Casino while his girlfriend returned her
attention to the game she was dealing.
The fur who had been trying out a
system folded after losing twenty dollars, while the other was content
to work through the lopsided odds (most of the time, the odds in
blackjack are in favor of the house) until he finally quit, pocketing
five dollars in profit. He smiled at Shin before he left and
asked, “You doing anything later, sweetie?”
“Maybe,” she said judiciously,
“but not with you.” She waved toward a small group of
hostesses. “Ask one of them.”
“I’m asking you,” he said.
“And you’re asking to have my
friend throw you out in the street.”
His eyes widened slightly.
“That tiger?”
“My boyfriend.”
She watched interestedly as he
weighed his options, then sauntered off to the bar, got a beer, and led
a giggling feline up the stairs to her room.
Shin smirked and started
shuffling her cards, waiting for the next two players. She caught
the bartender’s eye, and soon a cold bottle of beer was set down beside
her. The young red panda took a deep swallow of the drink and
settled down to wait.
The crowd had thinned out a bit,
with some going outside to see if the two furs could be roused and made
to fight some more, or more likely to strip them and leave them out in
the street. Some people, she knew, likened people on Krupmark to
scavengers.
Only a few met that description.
The rest were predators.
By the time the clock over the
bar struck midnight, Shin had given up standing at the blackjack table
and had taken a seat, listening to the hostesses. She was
acknowledged as a friend by the working girls at the Lucky Dragon and
they could count on her to pass on any grievances or problems to their
employer.
Since their employer was also
Shin’s mother, a receptive ear was guaranteed.
While she sipped at her tea she
overheard one of the girls say, “It is shame that I miss May Day this
year.” The thin saluki brushed an errant lock of headfur out of
her eyes as she added, “Tanya feels same way too,” and she nodded at a
slightly shorter sable. Tanya spoke only Russian, although she
was starting to learn English – usually by the horizontal method.
“What’s so big about May Day,
Valentina?” Shin asked, looking at the canine.
“Is great holiday,” the saluki
said. “Honors working classes.” She cocked her head at the
red panda. “You attend school at Spontoon, Shin. I know
they celebrate it there.”
“Oh yeah,” and Shin nodded.
For some reason, Meeting Island High School always gave its students
time off around the end of April; now she knew why. Ordinarily
she grasped any chance to come home, where her activities were a little
less restrained.
The clock chimed one, and Shin
decided to go to bed. There were no customers in the Casino
anyway, except for one or two that were still busy upstairs.

***

The next morning Shin walked into
the family’s dining room and kissed her mother on the cheek.
“Good Morning, Mother,” she said as she sat down. “I had an idea
last night.”
“Oh?” Ni Peng asked. Her
chopsticks poised above the small bowl of rice and strips of fried egg
with chives. It was her habit to eat a light meal just before
going to bed. “Tell me.”
“We always seem to lose a bit of
money about this time every year,” her daughter said as she tucked into
her own bowl, “and one of the girls mentioned May Day.”
“Tanya?”
“No, Valentina. I started
thinking that if Spontoon can do a May Day celebration, we might do
something like that here.”
The older red panda’s eyebrows
rose. “You’re not going socialist on us, are you Shin?” She
had been concerned that going to school at Spontoon would give all
three of the children odd ideas. “Your father would have a heart
attack.”
Shin giggled. “Nothing of
the sort, Mother. I thought that if we offer some sort of – well,
a discount – on something, and connect it to the day somehow, we might
make a profit from it.”
“Hmm,” her mother said, cupping
her chin with a paw as she thought. “I’ll have a word with your
father about it before I go to bed.” She smiled reassuringly and
reached out to run her paw against Shin’s cheek. “How are you
doing in school?”
Shin smiled and made a
noncommittal gesture with a paw. “Since I’m not a citizen, I
can’t go with the others to Guide School,” she said, “but I pick up a
few things here and there. And math – well, I need to try
harder.” She grinned. “I think Peng-wum got all of that.”
Peng smiled. She was proud
of all three of her children, but worried about them as well.
“Well, I shall go talk to your father, and you have things to do,
Shin.” She stood, bent close and hugged her daughter before
leaving the room.
“Things to do,” Shin said.
“Chores,” she amended in a sour tone.

***

Wednesday, May 1, 1935:

“What’s all this?” Shin asked as
she stepped out of the old dockside warehouse that since the year
before had become the offices of Ni & Sons, Investments. She
had been going across the street to the Casino, but had stopped dead in
her tracks.
The crudely painted sign of the
Lucky Dragon’s namesake was covered in red cloth; similar banners waved
from windows and the roof. A fox wearing a set of bib overalls
and no shirt was finishing up hammering a nail into a twist of fabric
alongside one of the doors. He stopped and glanced at Shin.
“Hi Shin.”
“Hi Hank. What’s all this
about? The place looks like the Commies opened an embassy.”
“Your father ordered it
yesterday,” Hank Carter said with a laugh. He reached a paw into
his overalls and scratched as he added, “Word’s been getting around all
over the place.”
“What about?”
“Well, today’s May Day,” Hank
said as one ear dipped. “Your father had us telling everyone that
he’s offering a ‘discount for the proletariat’ today.” He grinned
lasciviously. “One-quarter off on the price of the girls, so long
as you come in wearing red.”
That made Shin blink, and after
thanking the vulpine she headed for the office.
The bodyguard at the top of the
stairs recognized her and gently knocked on the door. At a sound
he opened it and Shin walked in.
As a little girl growing up in
Tientsin she had always felt a bit timid about entering her father’s
office; after all, important grownup things were happening in the room,
things she would not be privy to. That had all changed six years
earlier.
“Good morning, Father,” she said,
giving her father a kiss. Ni Hei returned the gesture and smiled
at her as she sat down. “A ‘proletarian discount?’”
Ni Hei grinned, showing his
teeth. “I thought you had a good idea, Shin. Peng-wum
thought up the discount, and the name for it – apparently he pays a bit
more attention in school than either you or Hao do.” He chuckled
as his daughter blushed. “We expect to recover the loss from the
discount through the Casino and liquor.”
Shin nodded. The Lucky
Dragon had only a dozen working girls in its employ; prospective
customers would have to take a number, and what better way to pass the
time waiting than to drink and gamble? “It’s a good idea,
Father,” she said. “I hope it works.”
“It will,” Ni Hei assured
her. “Red’s a lucky color.”

***

Surprisingly a small crowd had
gathered at the door before the Casino opened at its usual time of
seven o’clock; by eight the gambling area and bar were packed with
furs. A small group of musicians were playing, and several
customers were dancing with their hostesses prior to escorting them
upstairs.
No fights had broken out (yet),
which was also quite surprising.
Shin was at her usual blackjack
table, laughing and talking with the gamblers while they played and she
kept track of who might be trying to cheat the house. Fang, the
other bouncers and her younger brother Hao were keeping an eye on
things. She had just finished another hand when the music
abruptly faltered and died.
Silence descended, broken only by
a low rumble as perhaps twenty furs started to growl. Paws
reached for weapons as the crowd fixed its collective gaze on the
entrance.
A dozen furs stood in the
entrance, all wearing the dark blue jumpsuits of the Naval Syndicate’s
duty uniform – and all wearing red scarves or armbands. The
leader, a petty officer by the look of the silver stripes on his upper
arm, raised his paws placatingly. “We’re unarmed.”
“So what are you doing here?” Hao
asked. He already had his gun drawn.
The fur, a solidly built bear,
grinned at the slim red panda. “Well, Sport, we heard that ya
were celebratin’ May Day with a special. Is our money good here?”
Hao turned to look up at the
balcony, where his mother sat watching over the activity. Peng
thought a moment, her fan waving gently beside her muzzle, then nodded.
The youngest Ni child turned back
to the military man and said, “My mom says your money’s good.” He
and the bouncers surveyed the room, and he very obviously decocked and
holstered his pistol. The crowd took the hint, and various guns,
knives and pointed sticks were put up. The band started to play
again, and the sailors began to make a line to the bar.
Shin shuffled her cards and
started dealing again as the party slowly regained its momentum.
When she looked up she saw one of the Naval Syndicate sailors seated at
her table. “Hi,” the rabbit said shyly, placing a Rain Island
dollar note on the table.
“Hi yourself,” she said, dealing
the cards. “Where are you lot from?”
“Moon Island,” he replied.
“We caught wind of this over the radio, and decided to drop in.”
“You close by?” she asked.
“You might need to retreat if something bad happens.”
“The patrol boat’s anchored off
the reef,” he said.
Shin nodded as he raised the bet
and accepted another card. “And what will the Base Syndic say?”
The rabbit grinned. “Well,
the crew thinks that what the syndics don’t know won’t hurt any of them
much.” He accepted a third card and frowned as they added up to
twenty-three. “Nuts.” He tossed another dollar onto the
table and said, “Deal ‘em again, please.”
“Sure thing,” Shin said with a
smile.
The night dragged on, and the
first group of sailors was replaced by another. A brief commotion
erupted near the band, and Shin turned her head in time to see several
of the Naval Syndicate members link arms with furs from Fort Bob.
They were joined by Valentina and Tanya and with the band’s assistance
swung drunkenly into The
International:

“No savior from on high delivers,No trust we’ll have in prince
or peer;Our own right paw the chains
must shiverChains of hatred, greed and
fear.Ere the thieves are forced to
share their booty And to all give a happier lot,Each at his forge must do his
dutyAnd strike the iron while it’s
hot.

Then come, comrades, rallyAnd show the bourgeois what
we’re worth!The InternationaleUnites the furs of Earth!

Then come, comrades, rallyAnd show the bourgeois what
we’re worth!The InternationaleUnites the furs of Earth!”

The second chorus was shouted out
more as a chant than as a song, but it ended with whoops and shouts as
the furs all shook paws. A couple took advantage of the moment to
give the two Russian girls kisses, which they accepted happily.
The party went on until dim
shafts of sunlight started to peek under the front doors of the Casino,
and the bouncers shooed the last few revelers out. Shin leaned
wearily against her table, and tossed the well-used deck of cards onto
the worn green felt. It had been a long night (a very long night
for the girls, she was certain) but everyone had seemed to enjoy
themselves, and hopefully the profits from the night would offset the
‘discount.’
She abruptly swayed on her feet,
only to be caught and scooped up in a pair of huge striped paws.
Shin looked up and grinned sleepily at Fang. “Hi.”
“Hi yourself,” he said. “I
think you need to go to bed.”
With that, he scooped her into
his arms and away from the blackjack table.